Date Day

I had taken today off a month or so ago, but what we had originally planned for this long weekend had changed. Since I still decided to keep this day off from work, Jon and I thought it would be good for us to have a special getaway/date day! And still, as of last night, we still were unsure of what we were going to do. But, the last 20 or so hours have been great! When I got home last night, we just watched a little TV and talked while eating dinner. Then around 9:15, we decided we'd make a Target run like old college times. We went there intending to buy a new game that we could play as a pair and wound up bringing Scrabble home with us. My family does have a very old version of Scrabble (which still happens to be in my old room), but we thought it'd be good to have our own. Jon said he remembers playing it with his grandma and really wanted to play it, so it was a good, relatively cheap buy. While we were there, I got a really random idea to have an old-fashioned sleepover together-sleeping bags and all. So, when we got home, we got out the air mattress (for my princess and the pea boy) and set it up downstairs with blankets and pillows. After setting it up, I made homemade hot chocolate on the stove and we started our late night game of Scrabble. I also remember playing Scrabble with my family and also getting frustrated by it, so I'm surprised I made it through the game! To rest our nerves after such an intense game, I put in an Italian-style chick flick (and Jon laughed and semi-liked I think), but I quickly fell asleep. I guess I'll have to finish the movie later. Molly Pocket-face was enjoying our sleepover as well because she was either curled up on top of the pile of blankets or under the covers keeping warm! I'd say the sleepover was one of our best ideas yet; it was like "little kid fun" with my husband! We definitely had all the ingredient for a great sleepover, puffy blankets, snacks, a game, and a movie to fall asleep to!

Today, continued our Date Day and we had decided to go to a historical landmark and wildlife preserve about twenty minutes from here. Before leaving, Jon suggested we have coffee, devotions, and prayer time together; it was a great start to the day! Once we got to the preserve, I was pretty excited because it felt like we stepped into a far away place from Chicago! We were in the middle of a forest and there were old buildings around including a life animal exhibit including various turtles, snakes, and fish. They also had some cool animal skins and skeletons that you could observe as well. While we were there, I quizzed Jon a bit about the wildlife and told him facts about trees while identifying leaves and nuts on the ground-I loved it! There were other exhibits outside such as tepees, long houses, and cabins. There was also a trail on the back 50 acres that Jon and I took to look around at the trees and scenery and just enjoy the 'country'. While we entered the forest, Jon asked if I felt like I was back in Wisconsin and felt at home, I answered "Yes!" with a great big smile and a squeeze to his hand. While walking, my city boy spotted a little buck running away from us, but 50 yards after, he spotted an 8 pointer looking right at us! We were only about 50 feet away from it and it just watched us while Jon took some pictures. After that, we only saw a bunch of gray squirrels, so it wasn't quite as exciting, but still pretty! Oh, on top of it all, this was all free! One thing I like about living here is that they have a lot of forest preserves that are a nice break from the crazy life here.


Yummy Venison!

Look carefully, you'll see the buck behind me somewhere!


After walking around the preserve for two hours or so, we were pretty hungry. We ended up going to a Korean market called H-Mart, but how we came to that idea is kind of funny. While we were walking on the trails, we saw a lot of beech nuts and it reminded us of roasted chestnuts from Korea that we would buy on the street. Because of our craving, we realized it had been a long time since we had Korean food and decided that would be another great addition to our Date Day. My dad had forwarded me H-Mart's site a long time ago, but we had never visited there. It was just like stepping back in time to Korea, but with less Koreans yelling and running into us with their carts. Before shopping, we ate at their food court, Jon had kimchi jigae and I had dol sat bibimbap; both favorites of ours in Korea, but much more expensive here. I was not affected much by the heat of the food, but Jon forgot how spicy kimchi jigae is and it definitely cleared his sinus', ha! After eating, we walked around this huge store and picked up a few of our favorites: slip-skin grapes, raw chestnuts, aloe water, kimchi, and melon bars! We are pretty excited to slowly eat these coveted Korea items!
"History of Korea. Taste of Korea. Kimchi."

Yummy Kimchi Jigae!

So, that is our day so far. I have a feeling we'll be playing Scrabble again since Jon has been bugging me the whole time I've been writing this post. Maybe we'll have some more talk time and then throw another movie in before the night is done; who knows?